Blood Sport (26 page)

“Nonsense. I’m not arguing about it with you, Tess, so just go pack. I’m going to ring the Super and see if she wants to bother getting forensics involved. Because I’m sure we all know who’s responsible for this.”

I did what I was told, guiltily glad that someone else besides me was dealing with my problems for once. I could hear him talking the whole time that I threw my things into the tattered old backpack I’d dragged around Europe with me when I was younger and which now constituted my sole piece of luggage. Either he was having a very long conversation with the Super or he was making a number of phone calls. And the Super didn’t do long conversations.

He was still talking when I came out of my bedroom, so I took the opportunity to ring Dad to let him know what had happened. I’d forgotten to turn my phone back on again after being in court and had a flood of messages waiting for me. I listened to the first few, but they were all telling me the same thing – that someone had gone on a rampage in my house or that the windows of the Land Rover had been broken. As usual, the townsfolk were looking out for me. Jake had left a number of messages as well, each more anxious than the last.

Dad had already heard about the damage to the windows on the grapevine, but was devastated to find out about his goldfish and Nana Fuller’s treasured crockery. I rang off, him assuring me that he’d be fine at Adele’s place for a while. He wanted to help me sort everything out, but I convinced him that I could manage it by myself, even though I wasn’t nearly as confident about that as I pretended. Adele’s flat wasn’t as comfortable for him as our house was, particularly her bathroom, which was cramped and awkward for him to negotiate in his wheelchair. I was angry that he’d been forced out of his own home by the Bycrafts and that anger pushed away other, sadder, emotions.

I had my thumb on my phone keypad, about to ring Jake back, when the Sarge finished his own phone calls.

“I’ve organised for a glazier, a locksmith and a cleaning crew to come as soon as possible. But they won’t get here until tomorrow at the earliest, so you’ll be spending tonight at my place at least. The glazier promised to send some men here to board up your windows late this afternoon.”

I stared at him in stunned disbelief. He should have asked me before taking charge like that.

“I can’t afford to pay any of them,” I mumbled, unbelievably embarrassed. “Ring them back and cancel them all. I’ll have to fix things up myself.”

“And how the hell do you think you’ll do that with one arm out of action, Tess?” he asked, irritated, his hands on his hips. “You need to get your house secured and fixed so that you and your father can come back home. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Of course it bloody well is!” I said, looking up at him angrily. “But I don’t think you understand –
I can’t afford to pay for it!
I can’t make money appear out of nowhere.”

“I know we joked before about your finances, but you must have some rainy day savings at least.”

“Must I?” He was beginning to get up my nose. “People like
you
have rainy day savings. People like
me
don’t, because I spend every cent I earn trying to keep this old house up to scratch and trying to keep Dad out of a nursing home. And
none
of that is a joke to me!”

He was silent for a moment, looking down at me, a series of emotions flying across his face. “We’ll sort something out, Tess. You can pay me back later, bit by bit. Okay?”

It wasn’t okay with me. “I appreciate the offer, Sarge, but I don’t want to be in your debt.”

His lips compressed. “You wouldn’t think twice about borrowing money off Jake.”

I shook my head at his thickness. “He’s my
boyfriend
, you’re my
boss
. It’s a completely different situation.”

“Not in my eyes. Anyway, you don’t have a choice. I’ve already organised it and I’m not ringing them back.”

“
Sarge!
Cancel the workmen. I can’t pay for them!”

“I won’t. The workmen are coming and we’ll sort out the cost later. And that’s final. I’m not discussing it any further. You need to have a safe living environment.”

We confronted each other. “My God, you’re such a –”

I was rescued from that potentially career destroying comment by my phone ringing. Saved by the bell literally. It was Jake.

“Jakey,” I answered, incredibly glad to hear his voice. I left the room so I could talk to him in private. I told him everything that had happened, pacing up and down the hallway as I spoke. “I wish you were here.”

“I know, baby doll. Me too. I’ll round up a few guys and get them to board up your windows this afternoon.”

“Don’t worry about it. The Sarge has already gone ahead and organised everything.” There was nothing but silence on the other end for so long that I thought I’d lost the connection. “Jakey? Jakey? Are you there?”

His voice was frosty. “What’s he organised?”

“A glazier, a locksmith and a cleaning crew.”

Another long silence. “Who’s paying for all of that?”

“Me.”

“How?” My turn to be silent. I had no secrets from Jake – he knew how precarious my financial situation was, just as I knew how precarious his was. He didn’t earn a lot of money, had a huge loan on his ute to pay off and had a large lazy family that treated him like their personal auto-teller machine. “Tessie?
How
are you going to pay for all that?” His anger sparked down the line.

“I don’t know, okay?
I just don’t
know!
”

“Tell Maguire to cancel everything. He’s not your fucking boyfriend and he shouldn’t be arranging things like that. I’ll get a group of guys together and we’ll help you out.” He paused, marshalling his temper, his voice softer. “Just like we always have.”

“Thanks, Jakey,” I said, voice catching with emotion.

“Put Maguire on. I want to talk to him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah.” His tone was unmistakably unfriendly.

Reluctantly, I handed my phone to a surprised Sarge and watched as he spoke to Jake. His expression traversed a range of feelings as he did, hostility to the fore. There were some heated words exchanged that I wished I hadn’t been present to witness, feeling more than uncomfortable. What the hell was the matter with them? Why couldn’t they just get along with each other? It would make my life so much easier.

Finished, he threw my phone back to me and stalked out of the room. I could almost see the steam blowing from his ears.

“What did you say to him, Jakey?” I asked wearily into the phone.

“I told him that I’ll look after you and that he should keep his fucking nose out of your business.”

“Jakey! That’s unforgivably rude! He was only trying to help me.”

“That’s my job, not his.
I’m
your boyfriend, remember? Not him! No matter what he thinks.”

I’d had enough of his ego and turned very snappy with him. “For God’s sake, I don’t have so many friends that I’m willing to turn one away. The Sarge is a good man and a good boss, not to mention a great friend. And yeah, he shouldn’t be stepping in like that, but I don’t want you being so rude to him ever again. Do you hear me?”

“Tessie –”

“I mean it, Jake! You’re being a complete jerk about him lately.”

He hung up on me. I threw my phone at the wall in temper. It broke into two pieces.

“Problem?” asked the Sarge, leaning on the doorway, arms crossed.

“Everything in my life is a problem at the moment,” I replied coolly, picking up the pieces of my phone and trying to push them back together. I wasn’t sure how much he’d heard of my conversation with Jake.

He took the pieces from me and attempted to fix them together. They wouldn’t.

“I think it’s broken,” he said wryly, handing them back.

I rolled my eyes in resignation. “Of course it is.”

We looked at each other and laughed. It was a good release from all the tension of the last few days.

“I feel like Calamity Tess,” I admitted ruefully.

“I’m afraid to be near you in case something happens to me,” he joked. He glanced upwards. “Maybe a piano from the sky?”

“Ha ha,” I said sourly, and spent the next few minutes wrestling with my phone while he made some more phone calls. Not having any luck, I gave up for the moment and looked at him. “Sarge?”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know what Jake said to you, but I’m sorry if he offended you. He’s very protective of me.”

“So are most people who know you, Tess. Including me,” he replied evenly, shooting me a loaded glance that I couldn’t meet.

I sighed and stared at my boots. “I know, and I appreciate everybody’s kindness, please believe me. I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful in any way, because I’m not.”

He sighed as well. “I know. Come on, let’s go. I’ve cancelled everything and Jake told me that he’s organising a working bee to fix your house tomorrow. I’d like to help, but I don’t think I’m going to get an invitation.”

“I’m inviting you, if that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

“Thank you. From Dad and me.”

“Got to keep my partner happy.”

“It’s not such a hard thing to do really. Somewhere safe to sleep and a Tim Tam now and then keeps me happy.”

“It sounds so easy, but it’s proving incredibly difficult to deliver for you,” he commented dryly. “The safe sleep bit, not the Tim Tams, I mean. The Tim Tams are easy.”

“We’re running dangerously low at the station though,” I hinted gently. “Less than ten packets remaining.”

His smile was tight. “I’ll get right onto it.”

Reluctantly leaving my house a complete disaster zone, knowing there was nothing I could do, I spent the drive to the station trying to piece my phone together again. It beeped with incoming text messages and rang, but frustratingly I couldn’t respond in any way, even though I guessed that some of them were from Jake. I came to the final and much unwelcome conclusion that I would have to buy a new phone.
What with?
I asked myself.
How the hell would I know?
I answered myself with a lot of attitude. My tassels were in grave danger of being twirled in Big Town next Saturday night in return for some cash if I didn’t think of something fast.

Back at the station, the Sarge bolted up to his house to grab some large rubbish bags. We spent the next sodden half-hour blocking all the windows of the Land Rover with them in a vain attempt to keep any further rain out of the already drenched interior. I swept as much glass up from inside the vehicle as I could in the terrible conditions. Looking back at it from the refuge of the station veranda, it was a poor patch job, but it would have to do until I could arrange for someone to fix the windows for me.

Still damp, I sat at my desk and watched with amusement by the Sarge, performed an emergency operation on my phone by sticky-taping the two halves together. Surprisingly, it seemed to do the trick and I was able to use it, although the reception wasn’t great. It rang almost immediately and I answered quickly after checking the caller’s identity.

“Jakey, I’m sorry –” I started.

Simultaneously he said, “I’m really sorry, babe.”

“I didn’t mean to be so snappy.”

“I know. It’s a hard time for you at the moment. You’re stressed. I thought you weren’t answering me on purpose.”

“No, my phone broke.”

“How?”

“I threw it at the wall,” I confessed sheepishly.

He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “Tessie . . .”

“I’ve fixed it with sticky-tape.”

“That’s not something I can help you fix more permanently, baby doll. I don’t have those kind of skills. But I wanted to let you know that Harry and Two Dogs will come over to your place this afternoon to board up your windows.”

Harry and Two Dogs were Jake’s best friends, and two nice guys who I liked a lot. Harry was tall, gangly and freckly and worked with Jake at the prison. Two Dogs, nicknamed for owning pet identical twin dogs when he was a kid, was dark, tubby and balding and worked in payroll for the Council in Big Town. They openly admitted that they loved hanging with Jake because he attracted a lot of female attention, and some of it even rubbed off on them on occasion. In return, they gave him a level of loyalty and brotherly camaraderie that he’d never experienced from his own brothers. He was one of the only Bycrafts who had friends outside his family circle.

“That’s so sweet of them.”

“Harry’s cousin’s boyfriend runs a glass repair business in Big Town and he’s promised to give you a good deal on replacing the windows in the house and the Land Rover.”

“How good a deal?” I asked, suspicious.

“Half-price. And you can pay him off in installments, if that’s easier. He’ll try to reschedule to get to your place as soon as possible, although it probably won’t be for another couple of days.”

I couldn’t speak for a moment. “Oh Jakey, that’s so lovely and I don’t even know him.”

“I know it’s hard for you to believe sometimes, Tessie, but there are a lot of good people in the world who like to help others.”

“I know that, because you’re one of them.”

His turn to be silent. “I do what I can,” he said quietly. “Especially to try to make up for . . . well, everything that my family does to you.”